California Ceramist Harrison
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Crafting a Community CERAMIST HARRISON MCINTOSH EXPLAINS HOW HE MADE HIMSELF AT HOME IN CLAREMONT ALIFORNIA CERAMIST HARRISON two friends often traded work. But the circle of creative McIntosh is internationally recognized for kindred spirits was much wider still; Claremont ceramist the elegant stoneware he began creating in Rupert Deese was McIntosh’s studio partner for more than the 1950s and has continued to refine and 60 years. Artists Jean and Arthur Ames, Paul Darrow, Phil Cdevelop over the course of his long and distinguished Dike, Betty Davenport Ford, Millard Sheets, and Albert career. The simple lines of his forms and their softly curv - Stewart were all neighbors and friends as well. McIntosh, ing silhouettes reference the human body or elements of now almost 97, shares his reflections on these friendships nature, including gourds, eggs, and other natural forms. and on the lively Pomona Valley art community where he McIntosh’s exceptionally handsome vessels reflect his and so many others thrived. He is one of the 36 artists familiarity with traditional Japanese pottery as well as his who will be featured in this fall’s exhibition “The House appreciation of postwar developments in Scandinavian That Sam Built: Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, design. But McIntosh’s distinctive work ultimately is root - 1945–1985,” on view in the MaryLou and George Boone ed in a California style of pottery that he helped pioneer, Gallery from Sept. 24, 2011, to Jan. 30, 2012. The exhibi - a timeless style of elemental simplicity with an aesthetic tion is part of “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. directly inspired by nature, architectural form, and music. 1945–1980,” an unprecedented collaboration initiated by McIntosh worked and lived in the art colony of Padua the Getty that brings together more than 60 cultural Hills, in Claremont, Calif., and his lifelong friend Sam institutions from across Southern California for six Maloof lived nearby. That friendship is evidenced in the fur - months, beginning in October 2011, to tell the story of niture by Maloof that still graces McIntosh’s home, as the the birth of the L.A. art scene. 6 Spring/Summer 2011 [ ON REFLECTION ] What was Los Angeles like in the 1940s when you were How did you end up coming to Claremont? a young artist? Millard Sheets was the chairman of the art department Q&AIt was a marvelous time to learn about art. My brother at Scripps College, and he had a great reputation among Robert and I would go to all the art exhibitions. One young artists in Southern California. I found that I could of the best art galleries was called Dalzell Hatfield, in the use the GI Bill, so I went to Scripps to see the facilities. Ambassador Hotel. When I first arrived at Art Center There I met Richard Petterson, who was teaching a ceramics School, I worked in its offices in the morning and took class, and right away he was really enthusiastic about me drawing classes there in the afternoon. The school was only coming to the Claremont Graduate School. I brought about three years old then, still located on Seventh Street some samples of my work, and these were submitted to near Westlake Park [now MacArthur Park]. Chouinard Sheets. I was labeled a “special student” because I didn’t [Art Institute] was a few blocks away. Those were the two have any college degrees behind me. most important art schools in Los Angeles. The Foundation of Western Art, a privately endowed art And in Claremont you met Sam Maloof? museum that showed the works of contemporary artists, was Sam and I got acquainted when I was studying in nearby too. I was in the gallery one day, and the director Claremont. Sam was not a student there, but he was told me he needed an assistant, and I got the job. Many working for Millard, who had hired him to make silk-screen California artists would come through; I sent out invitations prints of his paintings. So for a year or two Sam lived at to shows for all these different artists, and I helped to hang Millard’s house. As time went along, the shows. So I became acquainted with many artists of Sam and I became more estab - the time, such as Millard Sheets, Phil Dike, and Tom Craig. lished, and we started having lunch together just about every You lived with your parents and brother in Silver Lake week. Sam did his banking in then, in a house built for them by the architect Richard Claremont, and he’d call me Neutra. How did that happen? when he came to town. If I I was fascinated with architecture, especially the modern was free, if I wasn’t firing the style that was developing in Southern California. When my kiln, we’d meet at Walter’s parents were planning to build a house in Los Angeles in Restaurant for lunch. 1937, I told them about Richard Neutra. We called him, and Also, when Sam and I the next day found ourselves sitting in his Silver Lake living were first beginning on what room planning the design of our house using redwood. would become our professions, We did much of the work ourselves. the Pasadena Art Museum was What I like about Neutra that’s reflected in my own putting on the California work is the simplicity of things—his architecture is mainly Design exhibitions. to keep the appearance clean using simplified areas of glass and open spaces in relation to nature. It was a golden age, with Was it during this time that you Millard Sheets and this started working seriously in ceramics? In 1940, a friend of mine told me beautiful little town. about a very good night class in ceram - ics at USC taught by Glenn Lukens. I studied with him for Tan Gourd Vase, ca. 1952, a year. Meanwhile, I set up in my parents’ garage, bought stoneware, 9 ½ x 4 ¼ x materials, and found a secondhand gas kiln that my dad 4 ¼ inches, collection of and I put outside the garage. I learned the formulas for Catherine McIntosh, Claremont, Calif. Photo by clay and how to make glazes, and I started making cast John Sullivan . Opposite: pieces. My brother had been hired by Walt Disney to make Harrison McIntosh scratches backgrounds for his films, so he would take my pieces to sgraffitto lines into the dry clay of a footed bowl, 1977. work, and the Disney artists would buy these for one, two, Photo by Catherine McIntosh. or three dollars so that I could buy more materials. HUNTINGTON FRONTIERS 7 The artist, at 95, at the exhibition “Harrison McIntosh: A Timeless Legacy,” American Museum of Ceramic Art, 2010. Photo by Catherine McIntosh . Right: McIntosh worked daily in his studio for 56 years. Photo ca. 1960. What was California Design? Eudorah Moore started it, and Sam and I both became acquainted with her. She was very encouraging for us. California Design mainly consisted of all kinds of furnish - ings for the home and accessories designed for mass or limited production, but it also included studio works like ours. Sam had a van, so we would go to Pasadena together to take our pieces for the shows. These shows turned out to be quite valuable because a lot of people in Southern California saw our work, and Sam and I would get orders. Why did this artist colony take hold in Claremont? It was a golden age, with Millard Sheets and this beautiful little town. Many of the artists who became well known had gone through the war, so Claremont, because of the GI Bill, became their paradise. And with the university, it had all that an artist wanted for intellectual stimulation. We were all part of a whole scene of what was going on in the contemporary field. Everyone was using traditional supporting one another. Every time anyone had an art materials but in new ways. show, everyone would come. All the artists spent time together? Not the painters with Interview conducted by Traude Gomez Rhine, a freelance writer the painters and the ceramists with the ceramists? in Pasadena whose last article for Huntington Frontiers was Yes, the painters and craftsmen, potters, weavers, sculptors “Orchids Forever,” in the Fall/Winter 2010 issue. Introduction were really mingling together—it was a true cohesive adapted from Harold B. Nelson, The House That Sam Built: community with a lot of great friendships, and everyone Sam Maloof and Art in the Pomona Valley, 1945–1985. 8 Spring/Summer 2011.